Delerium
by Empatheia
Summary: -Miranda- The lost months on her path to becoming an Exorcist.


**A/N: **Written for the June round of D.Gray-man flashfic exchanges on LiveJournal. Obviously very late.

**xxxxx**

_**Delerium**_

**xxxxx**

_O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven! Keep me in temper. I would not be mad._

"I can't, I can't, I'm sorry, let me go back," she sobbed, and turned away from the blinding light.

The floor was stone cold beneath her.

xxxxx

They had come with needles and masks, filled her blood with something that took away the sharp edges of the world and made everything blurry and vague. It shifted around her like shadows. Nothing was its proper shape, everything changed when she looked away, and so the walls remained strange even long after she thought she ought to know them.

Voices sounded wrong too, distorted and thick like they were all sick with the consumption, but she gathered from listening very hard that the needles were supposed to make her calm.

That made sense. She remembered getting here, seeing the dark stone tower stretch away into the brooding sky and hearing the ocean thunder against the cliffs so far below, and falling completely apart. Now she was calm. She was very calm. She was so calm she couldn't hear herself breathing. Calm like death. It would have been nice if only everything else would settle down and be quiet like her.

The people were here to help, she knew, and reminded herself of that constantly.

(_Here to help, here to help, here to help, here to help trust them trust them here to help trust them here to trust them help._)

They had taken her friend. The only one she had, the only thing in the entire world that was hers and hers alone, and they had taken it. Now she had nothing but the dishonest walls and her cold, slippery white bed and her very own ragged self.

She spent hours staring at her hands. They were always the same, unless there were needles in them.

xxxxx

She could hear them, standing outside her door. Their voices were hushed, but she could hear them because she was sitting with her back to it. In a minute they would try to open it and she would remember that it didn't lock from the inside and run away to hide. There were plenty of shadows. No one ever found her there.

xxxxx

"How is she?"

"I'm sad to say there's been little change. She talks to us if we talk to her, but what she says doesn't always quite connect with the topic at hand. The drugs... I've said this before and I'll say it again. I'm really not sure if we're helping her or harming her, here. I know she was hysterical when she got here, but I can't help but think--"

"We took her off them once, Gerard, and she nearly tore her face off. Kept screaming about not being worthy, having nothing, wanting to die, wanting her friend back. We don't think she's truly suicidal... just suffering under the biggest inferiority complex we've ever seen. We could be wrong, however, and would you really like to risk that?"

"Her... friend?"

"We aren't sure about that one just yet. The timing suggests that she means the Innocence-- the clock, you know, the one they took to the smiths for weaponizing-- but as it's inhuman, that in and of itself is a concern."

"You're right there, but it's not my biggest concern. I still don't know if we're doing the right thing. Maybe if she just had a chance to... she came willingly, Andrew. She wanted to be here. I just-- I wonder if she'll think we betrayed her, tying her down and sticking her full of needles the minute the fear got to be too much for her."

"Can you live with it if she does?"

"Well, yes. But I'd rather not, if you know what I mean."

"I know."

xxxxx

The voices stopped. She hadn't understood much of that-- everything sounded sideways and grey somehow, like she should understand but couldn't quite because it was in the wrong position.

She slunk away from the door to the wardrobe, slipping around its great mahogany side into the tiny space between it and the wall. It was thick with shadows like woollen cloaks.

The door opened.

"Dinnertime, Miranda," said the softer voice. "Sausages and bread and sauerkraut, your favourite. Come on out and eat."

She could smell it, and she was hungry, very hungry. There was porridge somewhere in her memory, warm and sticky and just a little sweet with honey. It was distant like years ago. She felt like she hadn't eaten anything else in all those years.

Hesitantly, she stepped out from her hiding place, regarding the man holding the tray with confused, sliding eyes. His hair was yellow. To her eyes it was like a smear of golden light across the grey of the stone wall behind him.

"Make the floor stop moving," she whispered. "I'll be good. I won't cry. I'll be quiet. Please make it stop."

"Oh, damn," said the smaller man beside him, soft and heartfelt. His hair was dark. He disappeared in the shadows too, though she thought he didn't mean to like she did.

The yellow-haired man frowned and put the tray on her table. "Maybe you're right, Gerard."

"Andrew, please."

Yellow Hair sighed heavily and leaned on the table, hands on either side of the tray.

Miranda stared around his arm at the food. She was really very hungry, but this was important, she knew it was. Not why, but it was. Must be still, must wait, must be patient patient patient wait be good.

"You'll take personal responsibility for this?"

Dark Hair nodded vigorously, clasping his hands before his chest like a child. "Of course I will. Just... please."

Yellow Hair-- _Andrew­­_-- sighed again, and stood up straight. "All right. I'll order the drugs stopped. If she goes mad, it's on your idiot head."

"Fine. That's fine. I-- thank you."

They had forgotten she was there, she could tell. She felt like a ghost. Maybe they would look and see right through her like air. Maybe she could touch them and all they would feel was cold wind. It was interesting, but she didn't like it, not today. Once upon a time she would have been so happy if people looked through her and didn't see her, but not today. Today she had to be there, because there was a boy and a girl and it was important. To reassure herself that she was still there, she took a few hesitant steps forward and latched onto Dark Hair's (Gerard's) sleeve.

He looked over at her, face just a pale blur in the gloom, surprised.

She wondered if surprise tasted like anything. Maybe like lemon drops? Yes. If surprise had a taste it would be like lemon drops. Relief tasted like mint. She was here, he could see her.

"Thank you," she said with her ghost-voice.

Now why had she said that? There was a reason, she knew. An important reason. 'Thank you' were powerful words, she wouldn't say them for just any old reason.

Gerard caught her hands between his own and smiled, a sudden streak of soft red like sunrise. "You're welcome, Miranda. I'll come visit tomorrow. I hope you feel better."

Then they left. She ate her dinner-- every last bite, she was a good girl-- and lay down, and watched as the ceiling whirled madly above her.

xxxxx

_A girl, with a mouth far too wide for her small pointed face. Her teeth were yellow. Her eyes were black. She burned herself away and grew herself back and the stench of death rotted all the air it touched. _

_Candles. Candles in the air, hanging from nothing. They had points like knives and insanely swirled colours and bloody wax dripped from them. _

_The air was dark._

_Everything is going to die, and Miranda can't do anything at all._

_Can't do anything. Can't do anything at all, so useless, can't do a single thing right, not ever, not ever, not ever, where is Mother?_

_Oh, right. _

_Mother's dead, and that was her fault too. _

_Just like the pretty boy with the white hair, his arm all torn and crooked. Just like the pretty girl. Her hair was black, her eyes were dead. Dead, dead like everything else. _

_For her, it would be so easy, but death is not for them, these pretty people with their bright hearts. They must live. They must, but the demon is here and smiling and Miranda is useless._

_If only there was something... but there isn't, there's nothing, always nothing._

_They took her friend. They took it away and she has nothing and the boy will die and so will the girl with the beautiful, beautiful black hair, and so will she, and the demon will live and smile and smile and smile and the candles will light her face so it's all Miranda will see when the darkness comes for her._

_The walls won't stop moving. The shadows crawl with malice. _

_The demon is coming. Everything will die._

_Miranda screams and screams and screams, and no one comes to save her._

xxxxx

"--two seconds to wake her and calm her down, Gerard, or I swear to you I will stick her so full of tranquilizers she won't move for a month. God, that bloody racket."

"Andrew, you heartless cad, I'm trying. Can't you see it's just a nightmare? With what she's seen it's no wonder. She's no Exorcist, not yet. Everyone has nightmares at first."

"Not like this. Look at what she's done to her face again. If that scars, the supervisor will have my head."

"Miranda! Miss Lotte, you have to wake up! It isn't real, you're safe. I promise. Please wake up. Please. Please."

xxxxx

She opened her eyes. The light was bright. It hurt her. She closed them again tight, cringed and curled in on herself.

"Damn, the lights. Andrew--"

"Yes, yes, I know, shut up, I've got them."

The light went away. Carefully she opened her eyes again, saw a ceiling and a face.

The face was moving. The ceiling was not. She tasted mint, green for relief.

"My head," she whimpered.

The face smiled. It was unfamiliar to her, but she liked it. It was a kind face. His dark hair made her feel safe. She wasn't sure why.

"It's all right, Miranda. That's just the withdrawal from the drugs. I'm sorry about that, but there isn't much I can do."

"Where...?" she wondered out loud, and startled when he answered her.

"Order headquarters. What do you remember?"

"Same day," she whispered. Her throat was dry. "Over and over again the same day, but not. There-- there was a boy, and a girl."

"Exorcists Allen Walker and Linali Li, yes. They brought you here."

"Said I could be-- said I could help."

"They were right. You're definitely a compatible user."

She stared blankly up at him.

He blushed. "Sorry. I mean you're a potential Exorcist, just like they told you. That clock of yours is off at the Forge being refined... you should have it back any day now, and then you'll be able to take it with you everywhere you go."

They were going to give her friend back. That was good. That made her feel good inside, like strawberries.

"Soon?" she said hopefully.

Gerard nodded and smiled encouragingly. "Soon. And better yet, by the time it gets back the drugs will have worn off completely and you'll feel quite yourself again. I promise."

xxxxx

It was so small. Just a tiny little disk, so black she couldn't quite figure out the shape of it unless she turned it all the way around and felt it with her fingers. It was spangled with lines and dots that were a green so ethereal she couldn't quite convince herself they were really there. Nothing that colour could actually exist.

It had once been a grandfather clock, taller than her and made of wood.

Now it was this, fey and strange and weighing nothing on her wrist.

It was completely familiar to her.

"Welcome home," she whispered to it, with a secret smile for them alone.

The door opened, closed, and purposeful footsteps approached her bed.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Andrew," she said without looking up. "I'm sorry I slept in late. I'm no good without an alarm clock."

"Nonsense, Miranda. We would have woken you if we needed you to be awake. You needed the sleep. The drugs were... harder on you than we expected."

"Sorry," she said instantly.

"Hush. That's hardly your fault. Now, how does that feel?"

She looked back down at the weapon on her wrist. It spun endlessly, leaving trails of light across her eyeballs that glared when she blinked. "Feel?" she echoed. "It feels... I feel... it's _mine._"

Andrew smiled wryly. "There are some who would argue with you. They would say that it isn't yours, it's God's, and he's only lending it you to help you fight for him. They hate it when Exorcists forget what they're fighting for. The Innocence belongs to God... but as my learned companion Gerard would say, so do you, so in a way it's still yours. Listen to me ramble-- don't worry about it, Miranda, it's yours and no one's going to take it away from you."

"Is Mr. Gerard not coming today?" she asked, tucking away what he had said about God to think about harder later, when she was alone. For now it was enough that they weren't going to take her friend away again. That was good, like strawberries.

"No, not today. He went to have a little chat with the supervisor and still hasn't come back yet. I told him it was a bad idea. That man is terrifying."

Miranda's chest twisted. She put a hand to it but it didn't really help the sudden pain. "Will Mr. Gerard be all right? Will he come back? I don't want him to--"

"Don't worry, Miranda," Andrew interrupted reassuringly. "The supervisor's a good man, and if he didn't kill me for accidentally sending you half out of your mind, he's certainly not going to hurt Gerard, who was smart enough to figure it out... despite being an idiot."

"Oh, good," she breathed. Mint again.

Andrew sighed. "I'm sorry for worrying you. I keep forgetting how literally you tend to take things. You'll meet the supervisor soon, and I'm sure you'll like him. He's... odd, but very kind."

"Can I see Miss Linali and Mister Allen again?"

"Yes, eventually. You have other things to do first, however. First you have to recover. Then you'll go through training to be an Exorcist, and testing at the end of that, and registration if you pass, and then perhaps you'll see them between missions. Perhaps you'll even be sent out on a mission with them, wouldn't you like that?"

"I would," Miranda replied honestly.

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. His eyes were very blue, she'd never noticed. He was sharper around the edges than Gerard, but he was kind too and she liked him. "Well then, you just focus on getting better, and you'll be seeing them before you know it. One day at a time."

"One at a time," she echoed.

xxxxx

Even a useless person like her could count days. They moved very slowly and gave her lots of time to record their passing and make sure she wasn't missing any.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight: _she's doing much better, perhaps you could move her to a room higher up, one with a window?_

Nine, ten: _look at the colour in her cheeks, we should have done this sooner._

Eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen: the grounds were bigger than they looked and there were many trees, the sunlight was warm and the stars were beautiful and there were places she wasn't allowed to go but that was all right because she didn't have nearly enough time to explore them anyway.

Fifteen: they told her that she had been drugged for twenty-one days, and she felt useless again because she hadn't even been able to count something as easy as that back then. She wouldn't listen when they reminded her that there had been no sunlight in her cell and she had been drugged to the eyeballs, how could she possibly have known? It didn't matter.

Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen: they gave her stretches and calisthenics to do and she did them. They hurt. Her body was healthy again, but thin and creaky like floorboards worn away by careless feet. She had not been kind to herself.

Nineteen: her training officially started. It was an occasion so momentous and big that she couldn't even wrap her mind around it. She couldn't decide whether to count big days like this twice, since there was so much in them, but she was too busy to think about it enough to reach a decision, so in wait of the impending judgement it counted as one like every other.

Twenty: Miranda stopped counting.

xxxxx

"Supervisor?"

"If you have coffee, come in."

"I have something better."

"There is nothing better than coffee, don't get smart with me."

"I brought the girl, supervisor. The newest Exorcist."

"...I suppose you should come in, then."

"Yes, sir."

xxxxx

The first thing she noticed was his hat. It was a very silly thing, all white and floppy and sliding off his head so that he had to adjust it ever so often. It made her want to smile, but this was a solemn occasion. It wouldn't do to laugh at him, he'd be angry and Mr. Andrew said he was scary so perhaps it was best to keep her head down and her hands together.

"Miranda Lotte, I presume," said the supervisor.

She bowed so low her hair fell past her face and swept up her cheeks to her forehead. "Yes, sir," she mumbled. "Sorry, sir."

"Sorry?" he said. "Sorry for what?"

Since when had she needed to explain what she was sorry for? Everything. Always everything. "Nothing, sir, sorry."

"Stop calling me that. I have a name, quite ridiculous really, but you can call me by it if you like. Most people call me supervisor, however, so perhaps that's easiest for you?"

"Yes, sir-- supervisor. I'm sorry."

The supervisor sighed. "Apologize again and I'll make you run laps until you fall over, you ridiculous girl."

"Yes, sir! Sorry, I mean supervisor! Sorry-- I did it again, I'm sorry. I mean--" Miranda gasped helplessly and looked to Andrew, who was obviously fighting a grin.

"She can't really help it, supervisor, I explained that to you."

"You did, but you didn't tell me how bad it was."

Bad? It was bad? She was bad? Well, that was nothing new, but it was crushing to hear it from someone who she'd only just met and she'd so been hoping to impress. Hardly a minute into their first meeting and she'd already annoyed him. It was hopeless.

"With all due respect, would you not have accused me of exaggeration if I had?"

"Fair enough. Miranda," said the supervisor, standing up to place his hands flat on his desk and lean across towards her face, "you listen to me and you listen well."

"Yessir," she squeaked. Her spine felt like a bedpost.

"I told you not to apologize because you have nothing to apologize for. The Order owes you for saving the lives of two of its best Exorcists. I owe you for saving the lives of my little sister-- the person more precious to me than anyone else in the world-- and the protege of one of my closest friends. What's more, we're in the middle of a war in which we're sorely outnumbered. Another Exorcist, especially one with your defensive potential, is a true Godsend. You're needed here, Miranda Lotte. You don't have time to apologize to the entire world for not being what you think you should be. Actually, you don't have time to apologize to anyone for anything period. You have work to do, so bloody well do it. Capiche?"

"Yessir," she said. "Sorry."

The supervisor stared at her, then laughed, sat down, put his head in his hands, and let out a gusty sigh. "Welcome to the Order, Miranda Lotte. Good luck with your studies."

"Thank you, supervisor," she said, and finally dared to raise her head and look at him directly.

He was looking at her. His face was very different from his sister's, much more angular and hard, but Miranda could see Linali in him. There was a kindness to him, a sorrow in his eyes for all the bits of world he couldn't save. He tried to hide it but he was a very bad liar.

"Andrew, take her back to the training wing and give her lots of homework. I want her caught up on Exorcist history by the end of the week. I'll send Gerard back to you soon enough to help... he's almost finished organizing my archives, there's only the desk left after he's done that."

Miranda watched Andrew's eyes run over the carpet of paper beneath their feet and the mounds of it on the aforementioned desk. His face paled. She cupped her hands over her mouth and giggled despite herself.

"Supervisor, if you don't mind me asking, what on earth did he do to warrant...?"

Komui Li located an offensively pink coffee cup somewhere within a canyon between stacks of delivery receipts and sipped at it blithely. "Ask him, if you want to know so badly. Perhaps he'll give you some tips as to what not to say to-- or throw at-- a superior officer."

"Duly noted, sir," Andrew said with a badly suppressed smile. "Well then, Miss Lotte, shall we be going?"

xxxxx

She was very good at being an Exorcist.

This surprised her so much that she was forced to insist on her mediocrity loudly and at length to everyone who would listen until she ran out of words. Then she sat in a corner and stared at the wall for a while, feeling her eyes dry out, until it began to sink in that there was something in the world that she wasn't inherently doomed to fail at.

Dishes would always break in her hands. Her sewing would always be uneven and untrustworthy. There would always be accidental burns and accidental bruises and cuts and scrapes and broken bones. The words out of her mouth would always be awkward and misplaced, she would never be able to say the right thing, and even if by chance she managed it, it would always be at the wrong time. People would always think her odd and eerie and choose someone else for every task they possibly could, but...

But. This, she could do.

The Time Record was hers. It was beautiful, it was powerful, it was real, and it did whatever she asked of it because it was her friend.

At first she only asked it for small things-- repair this sparring sword until they're done training so they don't have to go all the way back to the armoury, heal this wound in her finger so she wouldn't bleed on her textbooks, restore the paper she spilled tea on long enough for her to copy it onto a new sheet.

When those became easy, almost thoughtless, she stepped it up. Heal his broken arm until he can reach the infirmary. Stop the tree from falling until the child can climb down. From there, she rose to reducing trees to saplings, raising sandcastles the tide had washed away, holding buildings together.

Once, she saved a returning Finder's life when she held his guts together until the medical department reached him with disinfectant and instruments and a stretcher and needles.

After that, they set her to holding ships together while they did their best to destroy them with guns and cannons and letting them smash against the cliffs.

They never told her why they chose that particular training. She only knew there was a reason because she was an observant girl, and there were secrets written all over their faces. It took her weeks, months, but she worked very hard and by the end of it she was able to hold the the biggest ship in the harbour together for days, even when they destroyed it from within with barrels of gunpowder.

xxxxx

"Congratulations," said Komui at the end of the latest stretch.

Eleven days. She hadn't slept in eleven days, had hardly moved. The Time Record whirred harshly on her arm, thready and wavering like her. She looked up at him without comprehension.

He raised an eyebrow. "You pass," he said, which was no easier to understand.

The world slipped sideways. She buckled like a rag doll, cool sand catching her falling head and limbs splaying out at awkward angles because she couldn't summon up the energy to arrange them more sensibly.

A gentle hand pressed a cloth to her forehead, then fingers to her cheek. "Sorry, Miranda," said the owner of the fingers. "I'm so sorry you had to be pushed so hard. I'm so proud of you."

"Mr. Gerard," she whispered. "I'm so tired."

"I know," he said. "Just wait a minute, Andrew will be here soon and we'll carry you back to your room. Then you can sleep as long as you like. You have a whole week before the mission starts."

"Mission?" she echoed. The word made no sense. It sounded pretty, the soft esses and cushioning vowels and yielding 'm' and 'n' bracketing them all like bookends, such a lovely word really. "Mission, mission, mission. Mish. Shun. Misshhuun."

"You're exhausted. It's all right, love, go to sleep. No one will be mad at you."

The sea was calm tonight, all black waves and reflected moonlight. It was very pretty. The glittering lights remained even after she closed her eyes.

xxxxx

She did not dream.

xxxxx

"It's almost time for her, you know."

"I know. Is it selfish of me to not want to let her go?"

"Yes."

"...Of course it is. She's needed. Even so, I can't help but wish we could just keep her here, safe from everything waiting for her out there."

"She would only be safe for a little while. Without her there, they'll all die and then the Noah will come here. What good will delaying her suffering do?"

"You're such a pessimist. Maybe, with her, they could--"

"What, you think they have a chance? Gerard, you know who they're going up against. The Noah have been around for as long as the Order has-- longer, even-- and no one's ever even put a dent in them. They die, they come back, and the Earl just laughs."

"Good God, man. All we have left is hope, and you even want to throw that away. One must wonder if you have some sort of death wish."

"I don't want to die, you idiot, keep your flapping mouth shut. I'm just a realist. Miranda is incredible, yes, and with her they have a chance. Maybe. But I'm not masochistic enough to believe they can win when I know how likely it is that they won't."

"Well, I'll just have to believe for the both of us then."

"If Miranda knew what she was going into, she wouldn't dare hope either."

"Then I'll have to hope for all three of us."

"Madman."

"I'd rather be mad than hopeless."

xxxxx

"You understand the assignment?"

Miranda nodded uncomfortably. The leather was tight-fitting and foreign. It creaked when she moved and its reflective surfaces caught the light. She felt unbearably exposed.

"Good. That's good. Now let me ask you a personal question-- Miranda Lotte, how are you feeling?"

"I'm afraid," she responded automatically, then realized what she'd said and dropped her head. "I mean, I'm fine. Sir."

"No, thank you for being honest. It's good that you're afraid. The things you're going up against are very scary. Being overconfident would get you killed. But-- but. Miranda, are you listening?"

"Yes, supervisor," she said, feeling out of place in her own skin.

Komui frowned. "Overconfidence is bad, but so is underconfidence. If you don't think you can do it, you'll hesitate at the crucial moment and probably get yourself killed anyway. Miranda, do you believe in yourself?"

In herself? No. No, never. She was a failure, it was her entire existence. It defined her. She was nothing if she wasn't nothing. No, she didn't believe in herself, not alone, but... "I believe in this," she whispered, lifting her wrist. The Time Record hummed and spun contentedly, otherwordly streaks of green speeding up slightly. "I trust this."

The supervisor sighed. "Well, that's a start, I suppose. At least you have faith in _something._"

"I'm no good," Miranda said honestly. "I'm no good, I was made that way, but it's all right. It means I have nothing else I want to do. All I want is to protect Miss Linali and Mister Allen, and this Time Record can do that. I can do it with this. It's enough."

"I hope you come to see it differently some day," Komui said. There was resignation in his voice, she recognized it, it was bitter like almonds. "I hope someday you understand that you're something very different from what you believe yourself to be."

Miranda smiled, wide and sad. "You're a kind person, supervisor. Thank you."

"No, I'm not," he said, a strange expression racing across his face too fast to be named. "I'm really not. I might be sending you out there to die. How can you say that?"

"You're a kind person," she repeated, then bowed very low. "It's time to go, isn't it?"

"So it is," Komui said sadly. "Andrew, Gerard. You know the way?"

"Yes, supervisor," they said in unison, then glared at each other.

Miranda ducked her head and smiled helplessly.

xxxxx

The journey was very long, and the wagon was not very comfortable. It was small and cramped and full of supplies so that there was barely room to sleep. Miranda spent most of her time sitting at the reins in the open air, letting the leather leads lie slack in her hands as she stared at the sky.

Andrew and Gerard bickered constantly about nothing just to fill the silence. She hardly heard them.

Sometimes, once every few days, she fell asleep. When that happened, they moved her beneath the tarpaulin and covered her with thin cotton blankets and kept watch over her while she dreamed.

The journey took nearly a month. They crossed two seas and changed wagons half a dozen times when the horses grew too weary to continue. Countries blurred past-- Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, China itself, massive and filled with forests and deserts and hills and mountains and lakes and cold rivers that had to be forded and high passes that had to be laboured up. She realized that given more time and a less pressing goal, this was a journey many would consider the stuff of great stories.

Miranda kept a diary, a small leather-bound book which she filled with observations and thoughts and wonderings, but no one would ever consider it good reading. It hardly even made sense to her when she went back and reread it.

The closer the end of the journey came, the less any of them slept. Their objective stopped being some far-off thing, meaningful only in the intellectual sense-- now they could feel it. It occupied their minds entirely. At the end of this rough dirt road lay destiny of the bloodiest, realest sort, and the only one it was waiting for was Miranda.

Curiously, she wasn't afraid. She had come to the realization somewhere around India that the worrying about dying wouldn't make it any less likely, and so she was calm.

xxxxx

"Well, here we are."

"When do you think they'll get here?"

"I don't know, you idiot, this isn't a precision operation. We're just supposed to... wait."

"I know that, Andrew. I only asked when you _thought_ they'd show up, not for an officially estimated time of arrival."

"Don't split hairs with me, you prat. I don't know. You know I don't know. I don't know any more than you know, I've said that a thousand times if I've said it once."

Miranda coughed quietly, just once. Her erstwhile guardians fell silen and looked abashed.

"Let's just find the inn, all right? There's no sense arguing in the streets."

"Right, good plan. Good thing she's around to inject some common sense into the situation."

"Quite. It's not like you have any."

"May I point out that you're hardly brimming with intelligence yourself these days."

"You may, but you know it makes you sound petty."

"Petty!"

"As in, childish, immature, narrow-minded, blinkered--"

Miranda laughed out loud and clapped a hand over each of their mouths. "Inn? Remember?"

They blushed and nodded like teenaged boys.

She linked each of her arms through one of theirs, smiling, and together they set off through the grubby streets.

xxxxx

The message informing them of their party's arrival was waylaid in the alley by a hungry boy with a knife. Thus, Miranda nearly missed her boat, and only made it on time in the sense that it hadn't left yet. When she finally arrived, out of breath and flushed, the ship was a deserted smouldering wreck. She had heard the screaming the night before, the roaring and the destruction, but had believed herself dreaming. Now she knew that she had not been.

She stared at it. She felt like a failure, of course, she should have been here earlier to hold it together against the storm, but there was also the burgeoning realization within her that she could handle this situation. It was within her capabilities, easily.

"Here I am," she whispered, and ran her fingers over the mostly-intact helm.

"Here you are," repeated Gerard, looking quite near tears.

"Here you are," said Andrew softly a few moments later, turning away.

She turned to them. "You know the way back to Headquarters, right?"

They nodded. "We have maps. We'll be fine."

"They'll be here any minute," she said, almost apologetically. Her chest hurt. Her mouth tasted of salt, and after a moment she realized that was because there were tears on her lips, and that they were coming from her eyes. "They'll be here any minute so if we want to-- we should-- there won't be time, later--"

Andrew pressed his lips together until they nearly disappeared in a thin white line, then strode forward stiffly and shook her hand. "It was... I... Miranda, I--"

"Oh, do shut up, you nutter," said Gerard helplessly, and threw his arms around the both of them.

For a long moment they stood on the shattered ship deck, arms about each other while the wind moaned through the grey sky. Then they let go and stepped back.

"We'll throw you a party when you come home," said Gerard, and pulled up a smile from somewhere, God only knows where.

"With wine and lots of chocolate, just like you like," said Andrew, looking suddenly childish and small against the backdrop of the city and mountains.

Miranda smiled for them, and they walked away.

Now all there was to do was wait.

xxxxx

"A new exorcist has been dispatched from Headquarters," said the Chinese man with the craggy face. He had gone to the inn first looking for her before coming here, but now he'd found her and he'd known where her party was.

They were here now, missing one white-haired Exorcist boy. She would ask about that later, but right now she was too preoccupied with making herself walk down the stairs to face them.

"Because of her, you will be able to depart immediately. Because of Miranda Lotte."

One step at a time. Steps were faster, harder to count than days, but she tried anyway. One, two, three, watch the steps, don't fall down, four five six seven eight nine nowhere left to go. Don't look at their eyes, one frightening thing at a time.

The dock echoed beneath her feet. She turned around to face the wreck and felt her breath stop in her chest. This was what she had spent the last several months of her life preparing for, and now that she was here, she was unspeakablly terrified that she was going fail like she had failed at everything else she had ever put her hand to. "Everyone please stand back," she heard herself say, and wondered at the steadiness of her voice. Her suitcase clunked onto the boards unnoticed beside her.

The Time Record whirred to life, hummed in anticipation. It wanted to work. It wanted to do what it was made to do.

"Calm down," she whispered to herself. She couldn't do anything alone, but she wasn't alone. She had her anti-akuma weapon, made from the old clock which had been her old friend. Her weapon, made of Innocence, that thing which God so loved. She had God on her side... on her wrist, to be more specific. Even she couldn't fail with that kind of support.

She took a deep breath, and the ship flowered back to life before her eyes. It was easy. She had done this dozens of times, for days on end. All the same, she breathed a great sigh of relief when it worked. She hadn't failed. Everything had gone exactly as it was supposed to go. Now she could face the second terror.

Miranda, Exorcist of the Black Order, turned around to face her new comrades.

One breath at a time. This, too, she could do.

**XxxxxxxX**

**A/N:** Well, there you have it. This ending is actually kind of hilarious, because if you recall, within the next two manga panels after the end of this fic Miranda sees their faces, misinterprets their shock, and tries to drown herself for screwing up and fixing a boat they didn't want fixed. Self-confidence is still really not her strong point despite how awesome she looks in leather. XD


End file.
